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Alternative Justifications for Law School Academic Support
Alternative Justifications for Law School Academic Support
Programs: Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy Support, and
Programs: Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy Support, and
Humanizing the Law School
Humanizing the Law School
Louis N. Schulze Jr.Florida International University College of Law, [email protected]
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Louis N. Schulze Jr., Alternative Justifications for Law School Academic Support Programs:
Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy Support, and Humanizing the Law School , 5 CHARLESTON L. REV. 269 (2011).
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ALTERNATIVE JUSTIFICATIONS FOR LAW
SCHOOL ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAMS:
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY, AUTONOMY
SUPPORT, AND HUMANIZING THE
LAW SCHOOL
Louis N. Schulze, Jr.*
I. IN TRO D U CTION ... 271
II. WHAT IS LAW SCHOOL ACADEMIC SUPPORT? ... 273
A. Law School Academic Support Programs ... 274
B. A Brief History of Law School Academic Support ... 274
C. The Current Methodologies of Providing Academ ic Support ... 278
1. Pre-Law School Academic Support Methods ... 279
2. First-Year Academic Support Methods ... 280
3. Upper-Class Academic Support Methods ... 285
4. Post-Law School Academic Support Methods ... 288
III. WHAT IS "HUMANIZING LEGAL EDUCATION"? . . .... 288
A. A Brief History of the Humanizing Movement ... 289
B. What Is "Humanizing Legal Education"? ... . . . 290
C. Why Humanize Legal Education? ... 294
1. Improving Student Learning ... 294
2. Creating an Environment Less Psychologically H arm ful to Students ... 296
3. Providing an Environment More Open to Female Law Students and Students of Color ... 298
Associate Professor of Law and Director, Academic Excellence Program, New England Law I Boston. I extend my thanks to Professors Elizabeth Bloom and Lawrence Friedman (both of New England Law I Boston), Ruth Ann McKinney (of University of North Carolina School of Law), and Michael Hunter Schwartz (of Washburn University School of Law) for their insight on this piece. I also thank those who commented upon my Work-in-Progress presentation of this paper at the Law School Admissions Council, Academic Assistance Workshop, Elon University School of Law in June of 2010. My research assistant, Nicole Dapcic, significantly improved this paper, and I thank Dean John O'Brien and New England Law I Boston for supporting this project.
CHARLESTON LAW REVIEW
IV. WHAT ARE SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY
AND AUTONOMY SUPPORT? ... . . . .. .. . . 300 A. What Is Self-Determination Theory? ... . . . 300 B. What Is Autonomy Support? . . . 303
V. ANALYSIS: HOW ACADEMIC SUPPORT
HUMANIZES THE LAW SCHOOL, FULFILLS
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY, AND INCREASES
AUTONOMY SUPPORT ... 305 A. Academic Support's Role in Humanizing
the Law School ... 305 1. Humanizing Tenet Number One: "Do No Harm" .. 306
a. ASP Skills Workshops Helping to
"D o N o H arm " ... 306 b. ASP Career Advice as Helping to
"D o N o H arm " ... 307 c. ASP Community Building as Helping to
"D o N o H arm " ... 309 2. Humanizing Tenet Number Two: "Teach
Students, Not Subjects" ... 310 a. Individualized Academic Counseling as "Teach
Students, Not Subjects" ... 310 b. ASP Collaborative Methods as "Teaching
Students, Not Subjects" ... 313 c. ASP Focus on Learning Styles Theory as
"Teach Students, Not Subjects" ... 315 3. Humanizing Tenet Number Three: "Peace
and Ju stice". ... 317 B. Academic Support's Role in Empowering
Student Self-Determination and in Increasing
Perceived Autonomy Support ... 320 1. Self-Determination Theory Facet
Number One: Competence ... 321 2. Self-Determination Theory Facet
Number Two: Autonomy ... 323 3. Self-Determination Theory Facet
Number Three: Relatedness ... 327 [Volume 5
a. How Law Schools Traditionally Fail
at Providing Relatedness ... 327 b. Academic Support Methods' Role
in Providing Relatedness ... 327 V I. C O N CLU SIO N ... 330
I. INTRODUCTION
A problem exists in law schools on the issue of academic support. While some schools now include extensive academic support opportunities within their curricula, many other schools devote few resources to this endeavor while simultaneously advertising to the contrary on their websites. Although many law schools boast of pervasive academic support services for students, oftentimes the truth is that one administrator or faculty member serves as the sole avenue of academic support, and that person's overall duties dwarf the amount of time they spend on support. So why do some schools find it crucial to advertise academic support but fail to fund it adequately?
Perhaps a law school administration's reticence to commit substantially to academic support is predicated upon an inability of those programs to guarantee demonstrable results. Although a dean's definition of the term "results" might differ from that of the faculty, generally both parties want to see two things: better academic performance by the law school's students and an increase in the rate at which the school's graduates pass the bar examination. As a result, proponents of academic support programs have generated articles attesting to demonstrate empirical evidence of such results.1 Meanwhile, naysayers
1. See Leslie Yalof Garfield & Kelly Koenig Levi, Finding Success in the "Cauldron of Competition": The Effectiveness of Academic Support Programs,
2004 BYU EDUC. & L.J. 1, 24 (2004) (arguing that "there was a significant difference between" the first-semester GPA of the participants in the Workshop Series to those of all non-participants); Linda Jellum & Emmeline Paulette Reeves, Cool Data on a Hot Issue: Empirical Evidence that a Law School Bar
Support Program Enhances Bar Performance, 5 NEV. L.J. 646, 648 (2005)
("[S]tatistical analysis supports the conclusion that a bar support program [housed within the ASP] has improved the University of Richmond School of Law's bar passage rate."); Adam G. Todd, Academic Support Programs: Effective
Support Through a Systemic Approach, 38 GONZ. L. REV. 187, 189 (2002-2003)
criticize the empiricism of such articles2 and suggest that academic support is not cost-effective because it fails to convert each underperforming student into a successful one. Setting aside for a moment the important project of empirically proving the impact of academic support, the question arises whether other factors might justify the expansion of these sorts of services. This Article examines alternative justifications for law school academic support programs (ASPs) beyond statistical analyses of grade point average (GPA) or bar passage improvement.
This Article's thesis is two-fold. First, ASPs help humanize the law school environment. By providing a source of encouragement and assistance in an environment too often devoid of any positive support, ASPs can leave students feeling that their law school actually cares whether they succeed. For those in academia who believe that providing a more humane law school environment is an admirable and worthwhile goal, this Article serves to prove that ASPs contribute to providing that environment. Second, ASPs help a law school satisfy conditions of self-determination theory (SDT) and, relatedly, provide "autonomy support." There are three factors generally associated with autonomy support: (1) choice-professors of the law school provide students with as much choice as possible; (2) rationale-when providing choice is not feasible, professors or the law school explain why; and (3) perspective-professors or the law school demonstrate that they care about the viewpoints of the students.3 In a recent study, students who experience "greater autonomy support had greater basic need satisfaction, performed better-as measured by (normalized) grade achievement and passage of their bar examination, had more internal motivation when
("As a result of [Chase College of Law expanding ASPs and other services,] bar passage has improved dramatically.").
2. See Jonathan L. Entin, Scholarship About Teaching, 73 CHI.-KENT L.
REv. 847, 855-56 (1998) (arguing that "one-shot case studies" and "static-group comparisons" are not reliable in determining internal validity-whether the educational program made a difference-and external validity-whether the results can be reproduced by the general population).
3. Gerald F. Hess, Collaborative Course Design: Not My Course, Not Their
Course, but Our Course, 47 WASHBURN L.J. 367, 369 (2008) (discussing SDT).
seeking a lawyer position, and were happier."4 As such, if an ASP provides autonomy support, it will indirectly provide an increased likelihood of real learning and thus professional
success.
Part II of this Article further explores what is meant by ASP; it chronicles the historical development of law school ASPs and explains some of the methods these programs now employ. Part III discusses the "Humanizing the Law School" movement and describes the general philosophies and goals of the project, allowing a subsequent demonstration of how ASPs fulfill these goals. Part IV focuses on the psychological concepts of SDT and autonomy support. Part V analyzes exactly how the methods of academic support fulfill the goals of the humanizing movement and lead to an increase in perceived autonomy support in students; it refers to specific examples of law school ASP methods to prove this point. Part VI concludes that more schools should adopt or expand ASPs and introduces an empirical study testing the dual theses of this Article that will be published in a subsequent piece.
II. WHAT IS LAW SCHOOL ACADEMIC SUPPORT? Proving the thesis that ASPs humanize legal education, enhance self-determination, and provide autonomy support requires the initial step of defining these terms. Unfortunately, these three terms may be foreign to many members of the legal academy. ASPs all too frequently are virtually hidden from faculty at many law schools, oftentimes due to ASP professionals' relatively marginalized position in the hierarchy of the law school structure. This is a disservice to all because, upon closer inspection, many doctrinal faculty would find that ASP professionals share many of the same methods and goals as traditional casebook instructors. As such, with the hope of shedding light on such common ground, this section details the term ASP.
4. Lawrence S. Krieger, Human Nature as a New Guiding Philosophy for
Legal Education and the Profession, 47 WASHBURN L.J. 247, 262 (2008).
A. Law School Academic Support Programs
The term ASP has come to mean different things to different people. At one school it can include a focus purely on bar passage rate; at another school an ASP can focus almost exclusively on supporting first-year students. The success of an ASP depends largely upon tailoring its structure around the needs and resources of the law school it serves. Accordingly, defining the term ASP is difficult.
Nonetheless, scholars have offered several possibilities. Professor Sheilah Vance defines an ASP as "a comprehensive program designed to help law students succeed academically through a combination of substantive legal instruction, study skills, legal analysis, legal writing, and attention to learning styles."5 This serves as an adequate starting place, but for a more detailed understanding of what ASPs are all about, one must look at their historical development and understand what they offer now.
B. A Brief History of Law School Academic Support Unlike other sectors of the academy, law schools were slower to adopt academic support. Perhaps this is not surprising given the sink-or-swim mentality of the traditional law school or the hardscrabble attitude of many lawyers. Undergraduate academic support efforts began in the 1960s in an attempt to provide academic counseling to struggling students.6 These programs worked with at-risk students, and most in the field urged a one-size-fits-all methodology focused on remedying poor study skills.7 After initial reports of favorable results, more thorough empirical
analyses demonstrated that most of the success attained by such programs was either short-lived or overstated.8
5. Sheilah Vance, Should the Academic Support Professional Look to
Counseling Theory and Practice to Help Students Achieve?, 69 UMKC L. REV.
499, 503 n.24 (2001).
6. Paul T. Wangerin, Law School Academic Support Programs, 40
HASTINGS L.J. 771, 773 (1989). 7. Id.
8. Id.
274
2011] Law School Academic Support In response, undergraduate ASPs went back to the drawing board. Evidence emerged in the 1970s that programs tailored to address students' individual weaknesses and strengths provided actual long-term benefits.9 This effort begat the now common practice of beginning academic support efforts with an individualized assessment of the root causes of a student's academic difficulties.10 Other methods soon developed that led to statistically demonstrable positive results."1 Although debate still exists on the efficacy of undergraduate academic support, it is generally accepted that a sophisticated program using effective methodology can lead to significant and real improvements in students' success.
Law schools finally caught on fully during the 1980s with isolated academic support efforts arising out of legal writing programs, the Black Law Students Association, and other groups.12 Although other predecessors existed,13 academic
9. Id. at 773-74.
10. Id. at 778.
11. Id. at 781-83. For instance, Professor John Roueche of the University of Texas proved that casual programs (those run informally and part-time by professors) showed little effectiveness. Id. at 781. Further, faculty participation in such programs had to be voluntary and not compulsory. Id. Roueche also showed that successful programs also usually include a course on study skills, provide academic credit to participants, and use the assistance of peer or student tutors. Id. at 781-83. See generally JOHN E. ROUECHE ET AL., COLLEGE RESPONSES TO Low-ACHIEVING STUDENTS: A NATIONAL STUDY (1984) (conducting a national study seeking to discover and report how American colleges and universities organize, staff, and operate various programs to meet the needs of low-achieving students).
12. See Ellen Yankiver Suni, Academic Support at the Crossroads: From Minority Retention to Bar Prep and Beyond-Will Academic Support Change Legal Education or Itself Be Fundamentally Changed?, 73 UMKC L. REV. 497,
497-98 (2004) ("Academic support as a concept emerged in the 1980's, largely as an outgrowth of the influx of minorities into law school and the desire to diversify the legal profession and legal education."). The literature on the origin of the law school academic support movement is a bit unclear as to the decade when the movement started. Compare Jean Boylan, The Admission Numbers
Are Up: Is Academic Support Really Necessary?, 26 J. Juv. L. 1, 1-2 (2006)
(asserting that law school ASPs began in the 1960s), and Kathy L. Cerminara,
Remembering Arthur: Some Suggestions for Law School Academic Support Programs, 21 T. MARSHALL L. REV. 249, 252 (1996) ("Law schools began to develop academic support programs to assist students admitted under their affirmative action admissions programs in the 1960s and 1970s."), with Richard Cabrera & Stephanie Zeman, Law School Academic Support Programs-A
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support as a movement dawned with the Access 2000
conference,14 gained momentum with a full day mini-workshop at
the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) meeting in
1989,15 and coalesced in earnest in 1992 with the Law School
Survey of Available Academic Support Programs for the New Century, 26 WM.
MITCHELL L. REV. 205, 205 (2000) ("[ASPs] are relatively new phenomena at United States law schools. [ASPs] in law schools began as an attempt to emulate undergraduate programs which began in the early 1960s .... ). A fair account of the situation would recognize that law school ASPs can trace their roots to responses to the needs created by the affirmative action initiatives of the 1960s. See Leslie Yalof Garfield, The Academic Support Student in the Year
2010, 69 UMKC L. REV. 491, 492 (2001). For instance, in 1966, Harvard's summer program recruited students from southern black colleges and introduced them to the possibility of applying to law school and pursuing a legal career. Albert Y. Muratsuchi, Race, Class, and UCLA School of Law
Admissions, 1967-1994, 16 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 90, 92 (1995). While isolated efforts such as these existed, the academic support movement, per se, really did not get its collective foot in the door, systemically until the 1980s. See Garfield & Levi, supra note 1, at 1 (noting the adoption of ASPs at law schools "[f]or the past three decades").
13. For instance, the first centralized effort at providing academic support by means of a pre-law school program emerged in the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) Institutes. Starting in the 1960s, the CLEO Summer Institute could be characterized as the predecessor to the academic support movement in that, like current pre-law school initiatives offered by ASPs, CLEO offered minority students a "rigorous pre-law preparatory summer" experience aimed at introducing students to law school, law professors, and law school exams. Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker & Sarah E. Redfield, Law Schools Cannot Be Effective in Isolation, 2005 BYU EDUC. & L.J. 1, 11 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Wangerin, supra note 6, at 775 ("CLEO administrators invite minority students with inadequate standardized test scores and undergraduate grades to attend free summer programs.").
14. See Paula Lustbader, From Dreams to Reality: The Emerging Role of
Law School Academic Support Programs, 31 U.S.F. L. REV. 839, 842 & n.12 (1997). Access 2000: The Challenge to Insure Diversity in the Legal Profession was the first major conference at which law school ASP issues were discussed.
Id.; see also Judith J. Devine & Jennifer D. Odom, Do Academic Support Programs Reduce the Attrition Rate of First-Year Law Students?, 29 T.
MARSHALL L. REV. 209, 214 n.22 (2004) (stating that the Law School Admissions Council "committed funds and personnel for ASP workshops and an ASP guide for law schools").
15. Lustbader, supra note 14, at 842. Other "round table" forums were organized at subsequent AALS annual conferences, all focusing on the emerging field of law school academic assistance. Id. Also, the Law School Admissions Council "committee on minority affairs ... promote[d] the proliferation of ASPs by retaining a consultant who: researched existing programs to collect a variety
Admission Council's five-day institute at the University of Colorado in Boulder. 16
An early goal in this movement was finding a model ASP framework. In hindsight, this appears to be a similar misstep to that taken by undergraduate ASPs, which focused for some time on a "one-size-fits-all" model of academic counseling.17 Just as undergraduate academic support professionals realized that academic counseling had to be individualized to fit each student's needs, law school academic support professionals realized that each law school "must consider the unique needs of its students, faculty, administration, and institution, as well as the available resources."18 As the academic support movement solidified, the development of custom-tailored ASPs became a central facet of mainstream thinking.
The ASP movement has flourished in the last decade.19 Most law schools now have an ASP,20 and many have a multi-faceted program design.2l The American Association of Law Schools
of program designs, instructional materials, and administrative models; created a manual for ASPs; [and] traveled to numerous schools to help them develop a program .... Id.
16. Id.; Suni, supra note 12, at 498. The Academic Assistance Training Workshop in June of 1992 "was a Mecca for ASP professionals because it gave them the opportunity to break through their respective isolation, and it created a synergy that carried professionals and their programs to unimagined new heights." Lustbader, supra note 14, at 842; see also Suni, supra note 12, at 498 (noting that previously many ASP professionals worked in "isolation at their schools" and suggesting the ASP movement emerged "[a]s a result of networking and information-sharing at that conference").
17. See supra notes 6-11 and accompanying text. 18. Lustbader, supra note 14, at 842 n.13.
19. See Suni, supra note 12, at 498 (stating that almost all schools now report having some form of academic support).
20. Kevin H. Smith, Program Evaluation: Defining and Measuring
"Success" in Academic Support Programs, 2003 MICH. ST. U. DET. C. L. L. REV.
177, 178 (2003) ("The number of law schools with [ASPs] increased dramatically over the past decade. The vast majority of ABA-accredited law schools now offer some form of [ASP].").
21. See, e.g., Academic Advising, N.Y.L. SCH., http://www.nyls.edu/ academics/academicadvising (last visited Oct. 23, 2010) (including a pre-law school summer legal methods course, weekly tutorial meetings with upper-class Teaching Fellows, a writing specialist, and Community Advising Groups);
Academic Year Program, SEATTLE U. SCH. L., http://www.law.seattleu.edu/ Academics/AcademicResourceCenter/ProgramOverview/AcademicYearPro
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includes a section for Academic Support,22 the Law SchoolAdmissions Council sponsors a biennial national workshop and
more frequent regional workshops,23 and regional consortiums of
academic support professionals have emerged.24 The next section
explores the curricular design of these relatively new ASPs.C. The Current Methodologies of Providing Academic Support As previously mentioned, law schools must choose the academic support methods that best suit their students, faculty, and curricula. As a result, law school academic support methods around the nation are diverse. Nonetheless, some methods have
become mainstream, while others are more innovative.
The methodologies of the law school academic support
community can be sorted into four temporal categories: (1) pre-law school academic support, (2) first-year academic support, (3) upper-class academic support, and (4) post-law school academic support.2 5 These categories will be discussed briefly in turn.gram.xml (last visited Oct. 23, 2010) (including first-year orientation workshops, the use of second and third-year Teaching Assistants, and a bar exam strategy workshop); Support, NEW ENG. L. I Bos., http://www.nesl.edu/ exceptionallsupport.cfm (last visited Oct. 23, 2010) (including a first-year "Academic Excellence" class, a for-credit second year "Legal Analysis" class for students who underperformed in the first year, and a for-credit bar preparation course in the final semester of law school).
22. See Association of American Law Schools Section on Academic Support, UMKC SCH. L., http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/profiles/glesnerfines/asp/asp. htm (last visited Oct. 22, 2010).
23. See Suni, supra note 12, at 498 n.11. The biennial conferences included Boulder in 1992, William & Mary in 1993, Hofstra in 1997, Kansas City in 2000, Seattle in 2002, Las Vegas in 2005, Miami in 2007, and St. Louis in 2009. Id. (Boulder in 1992, William & Mary in 1993, Hofstra in 1997, Kansas City in 2000, Seattle in 2002, Las Vegas in 2005); LSAC Academic Assistance
Training Workshop Update, LAW SCH. ACAD. SUPPORT BLOG (Apr. 28, 2009), http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/academic-support/2009/04/ lsac-academic-assistance-training-workshop'update.html (St. Louis in 2009);
Great ASP Workshop in Miami, LAW SCH. AcAD. SUPPORT BLOG (June 25, 2007), http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/academic-support/2007/06/great-asp-works. html (Miami in 2007).
24. See, e.g., BY-LAws OF THE NEW ENGLAND CONSORTIUM OF AcADEMIc
SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS (NECASP) (2009) (on file with author).
25. See Ricardo Villarosa & Ruth Ann McKinney, Conference Presentation: The Five W's of Strong Academic Support Programs 2 (2008) (on file with author).
20111 Law School Academic Support 1. Pre-Law School Academic Support Methods
Pre-law school academic support methods usually include programs that occur prior to the regular law school orientation. These programs introduce students to the various concepts they will face in the near future: how law school classes are conducted, how legal problems are analyzed, how legal reasoning is achieved, etcetera.26 Studies of these programs show mixed results. Shorter pre-orientation programs usually show little evidence of impact on students' law school grades.27 More expansive programs, by contrast, such as the CLEO Summer Institute,28 show better results.29 Regardless of any impact upon grades, these programs often have intangible yet important, consequences such as community-building, easing the apprehension of starting law school, providing a substantive
26. See Cabrera & Zeman, supra note 12, at 210; see also Jean Boylan,
Crossing the Divide: Why Law Schools Should Offer Summer Programs for Non-Traditional Students, 5 SCHOLAR 21, 27-30 (2002) (describing the types of
in-house summer programs as: (1) those focusing on legal skills; (2) those including substantive classes; and (3) those providing mini-introductions to the law school environment).
27. See Kristine S. Knaplund & Richard H. Sander, The Art and Science of
Academic Support, 45 J. LEGAL EDUC. 157, 172-73 (1995) ("[T]he summer program [at one law school] clearly ha[d] no important effect on the academic performance of students after their first semester of law school .... ).
28. See What Is CLEO, CLEO ScHOLARs, http://www.cleoscholars.com/ index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=498&parentID=482&nodeID = 2 (last visited Oct. 22, 2010). CLEO was founded in 1968 "as a non-profit project of the ABA Fund for Justice and Education to expand opportunities for minority and low-income students to attend law school." Id. CLEO offers a six-week, Pre-Law Summer Institute at a number of law school campuses. Id. The Summer Institute is described as follows: "[d]esigned to evaluate the student's capacity for learning the law while simultaneously acclimating them to the law school process, the curriculum is taught by full-time law professors and simulates the rigors of the first year of law school." What Is CLEO?, A.B.A., http://www.abanet.org/cleo/whatis.html (last visited Oct. 22, 2010).
29. Eulius Simien, The Law School Admission Test as a Barrier to Almost
Twenty Years of Affirmative Action, 12 T. MARSHALL L. REV. 359, 383-84 (1987) (focusing on law school graduation rate of CLEO alumnae as indicative of its success). But see Knaplund & Sander, supra note 27, at 183 n.65 (suggesting, based on data admittedly lacking statistical significance, that the CLEO Summer Institute did not provide measurable academic improvement to participants).
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head-start, and supporting non-traditional law students.
302. First-Year Academic Support Methods
First-year academic support methods are myriad.
Some
programs
focus
initially
on
students
with
academic
indicators showing a potential for the need for assistance.31
Other programs focus primarily on minority or non-traditional
law students.32 Still other programs take a different approach,
remaining open to all students and slowly narrowing in on
students whose law school performance indicates the need for
support.
33Oftentimes, the decision of which style of program to
implement depends upon the individual law school's philosophy
regarding the potential stigma students might feel as a result of
the ASP.34 For instance, a program focusing strictly on students30. See Boylan, supra note 26, at 26 (calling for all law schools to adopt pre-law school programs to offset the disadvantage suffered by students lacking cultural exposure to the Socratic method).
31. See Garfield, supra note 12, at 494-96.
32. See id.; see also Paula Lustbader, Walk the Talk: Creating Learning
Communities to Promote a Pedagogy of Justice, 4 SEATTLE J. Soc. JUST. 613, 629 (2006) (noting that the ASP at Seattle University School of Law is for non-traditional students).
33. Dionne L. Koller, Legal Writing and Academic Support: Timing Is
Everything, 53 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 51, 54-55 (2005-2006). For instance, many ASPs provide weekly or occasional workshops in the first semester, open to all students, which focus on study skills all students need, such as outlining, case-briefing, reading cases, etcetera. See, e.g., id. at 55. These programs often employ individual counseling only at the behest of the student or if a professor refers a student due to the observation of the need for support. Id. In the second semester, though, these programs may begin to target students for individual counseling of other remedial measures based upon a student's underperformance on mid-year exams. Id. In this way, any stigmatization effect is not an artificial "self-fulfilling prophecy" because the student received deficient grades prior to individual targeting for academic support. See Cynthia Schmidt & Ann L. Iijima, A Compass for Success: A New Direction for Academic
Support Programs, 4 CARDOZO PUB. L. POL'Y & ETHICS J. 651, 680-81 (2006) ("[T]eachers' expectations of students are communicated to the students by various cues, and that students respond to those cues by performing up or down to those expectations.").
34. Chris K. Iijima, Separating Support from Betrayal: Examining the
Intersections of Racialized Legal Pedagogy, Academic Support, and Subordination, 33 IND. L. REV. 737, 773 (2000) (noting the stigma associated
2011] Law School Academic Support with lower academic indicators, such as LSAT scores or undergraduate GPA, may run the risk of sending the message to those students that the law school believes they are unlikely to succeed or that such students have a history of failing at the law school.35 As a result, some ASPs will eschew this approach to avoid any potential "self-fulfilling prophecy"36 that students tagged with the stigma of working with a "remedial" program ultimately might fail because the school implicitly told them they would fail.
Philosophy aside, first-year ASPs employ a myriad of different methodological techniques. These include tutoring or guided study groups by successful upper-class students, workshops on study or exam skills, academic counseling, regularized classes, advising or mentoring programs, resource libraries, and faculty-provided feedback on student work.37
with participating in ASPs as a critical issue).
35. See Koller, supra note 33, at 54-55 (discussing the stigma potentially created by targeting students for academic support prior to signs of need); Todd,
supra note 1, at 190 (arguing that a poorly run or underfunded ASP can
actually harm students and hinder improvement in the legal academy).
36. Schmidt & lijima, supra note 33, at 680. This phenomenon occurs when a student receives implicit or explicit input from the law school, causing the student to believe that he or she has been "diagnosed" as likely to fail. See
id. at 681. This student then internalizes this message, made all the more
powerful by the fact that professional educators (themselves trained in law) have come to this conclusion. The internalization of this message leads to the belief by the student that, regardless of their hard work, they are destined to fail. As a result, the student works less diligently or, in the alternative, simply encounters a diminished self-esteem regarding their academics; in either case, the student underperforms not due to any real deficiency they possessed entering the law school, but instead due to the perceived belief that they have been tagged as destined to fail. See id. (suggesting that "the stigma of offering academic support" can cause students to "perform down to their own lowered expectations and to their perception of the law school's expectations").
37. Cabrera & Zeman, supra note 12, at 209-10. An initial decision to be made is whether to employ large classroom academic support, individual academic support, or both. Large classroom academic support usually includes instruction relevant to all first-year students. Topics often include outlining, case-briefing, reading cases, legal analysis, and others. See Ollivette E. Mencer,
New Directions in Academic Support and Legal Training: Looking Back, Forging Ahead, 31 S.U. L. REV. 47, 51-54 (2004). The theory is that instead of
forcing students to rely on the law school rumor mill to learn these skills, academic support classes provide centralized instruction so as to control the message and lead students towards best practices. In theory, this does away
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Once academic counseling is initiated, it still can take many
different forms. One format is driven by the philosophy that the
goal of academic support should be to help students understand
how to teach themselves to learn more efficiently. This sort of
academic counseling often focuses on meta-cognition-thinking
about thinking,38 focusing students on their preferred learning
style,39 and creating "self-learners"-students able to teachthemselves.40 This approach plays into the notion of autonomy
with the competition for the "best" outlines because all students have access to the methodology of outlining. This, in turn, then humanizes the law school. See Barbara Glesner Fines, Fundamental Principles and Challenges of Humanizing
Legal Education, 47 WASHBURN L.J. 313, 316 (2008) ("Legal education cannot truly be humanized while so many faculty members are wedded to an educational philosophy grounded in a competitive ethos."); Michael Hunter Schwartz, Humanizing Legal Education: An Introduction to a Symposium
Whose Time Came, 47 WASHBURN L.J. 235, 235-36 (2008) [hereinafter Schwartz, Humanizing Legal Education] ("[L]aw schools should demonstrate respect for students, provide a supportive environment, encourage collaboration, produce graduates who 'nurture quality of life,' 'support student autonomy,' provide increased practice and feedback, meet the needs of all students by varying teaching methodologies, teach 'self-reflection and lifelong learning skills' and 'self-directed learning skills,' and produce graduates who demonstrate self-efficacy.").
Individualized academic support, by contrast, focuses on a student's particular strengths and weaknesses, thus necessitating an initial discussion with the student aimed at discerning where academic support measures can be targeted. As a matter of resource conservation, many programs must choose to make individual counseling available only to students with a demonstrated deficiency, such as underperformance on mid-year exams. See Mencer, supra.
But see Todd, supra note 1, at 192 ("Focusing solely on those students at the
bottom of the law school class, unfortunately, has a tendency to marginalize them."). Otherwise, if academic counseling was available to all students, those at the top of the class, who are always hungry for any source of an edge, might monopolize the time of the academic support faculty at the expense of the more evasive students at the bottom of the class who are more in need of such counseling.
38. "Metacognition is a learner's awareness of the learning process itself." Jacquelyn H. Slotkin, An Institutional Commitment to Minorities and Diversity:
The Evolution of a Law School Academic Support Program, 12 T.M. COOLEY L.
REV. 559, 569 (1995); see Robin A. Boyle, Employing Active-Learning Techniques
and Metacognition in Law School: Shifting Energy from Professor to Student, 81
U. DET. MERCY L. REV. 1, 2 (2003) (encouraging law professors to vary their teaching styles to encompass active learning).
39. See Robin A. Boyle & Rita Dunn, Teaching Law Students Through
Individual Learning Styles, 62 ALB. L. REV. 213, 245-46 (1998).
2011] Law School Academic Support support because it posits the student as the party ultimately responsible for decision making in the learning process.41
Another form of individual academic counseling is based on the view that many underperforming students may need an authority figure to hold them accountable for keeping up with the studying and practicing techniques employed by students at the top of the class. In this model, the academic support professor "assigns" the student study or practice work, indicating the "due date" for such work. Obviously, the goal is not to add additional work to the student's schedule,42 but to assign the work that other students are doing on their own initiative. For instance, a student needing this sort of support might be required to attend her next academic support meeting having completed her Torts outline, ten multiple choice questions in each class, and one Contracts essay. These are study methods other students are-or should be--completing, but some students might need to hear this message explicitly or have a set due date for motivation. When students complete these assignments, they then see the improvements they have made in terms of their ability to process law, analyze legal problems, and teach themselves how to impact the efficiency and effectiveness of their studies. In this way, academic support provides students with the ability to achieve competence, a central facet of SDT.
Another consideration in sculpting the methodology of the first-year component of an ASP is the degree to which the program should integrate doctrinal material.43 The normative Gaps: A Cognitive Theory of the Learning Progression of Law Students, 33
WILLAMETTE L. REV. 315, 319-30 (1997); Michael Hunter Schwartz, Teaching
Law Students to Be Self-Regulated Learners, 2003 MICH. ST. DCL L. REV. 447,
452 (2003) [hereinafter Schwartz, Teaching Law Students]; see also Robin A. Boyle, Law Students with Attention Deficit Disorder: How to Reach Them, How
to Teach Them, 39 J. MARSHALL L. REV. 349, 373-77 (2006) (suggesting law
professors vary traditional teaching methods to reach students with attention deficit disorder).
41. See infra Part V.A.2.
42. In fact, it has been noted that assigning additional work to the schedule of underperforming law students can be detrimental to their likelihood of success. See Mencer, supra note 37, at 53, 74.
43. See Elizabeth M. Bloom & Louis N. Schulze, Jr., Integrating Doctrinal
Material and Faculty into Academic Support Courses, LEARNING CURVE (Am.
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[Volume 5 question this issue raises-should we integrate doctrinal material in academic support?-is easily answered. Empirical evidence suggests that academic support is more effective the closer an ASP works with the actual cases and rules covered in doctrinal classes.44 The problem arises, however, because integrating substantive law sometimes raises objections from doctrinal faculty.45 It has been stated that academic support professionals often receive a "subtle" message from doctrinal faculty: "Do what you need to help students, but don't interfere with my teaching."46 Sometimes this message is not so subtle.47Dealing with this political situation often depends upon one's status at the institution. If the academic support professional is tenured or has the strong support of the faculty or administration, integration of doctrinal materials into the ASP may be possible notwithstanding objections from some individual faculty members. If the academic support professional is not so situated, then he or she should consider adopting methods that dispel objections but nonetheless accomplish the goal of establishing an effective program. Such methods might include co-teaching ASP classes with doctrinal faculty who advocate for
http://www.aals.org/documents/sections/academicsupport/LearningCurve200912 Fall.pdf.
44. See Knaplund & Sander, supra note 27, at 177 (discussing the
statistical improvements in the ASP program at UCLA when "Professor A" tied the substance of her ASP class more closely "to the specific problems her students were grappling with in their other courses"). One method to achieve this goal includes using in-class practice exams based upon cases students recently covered in their other courses. Id. Another method would be to have a workshop or guided study-group in which the members of the academic support class must explain to the academic support professor a certain area of law they recently learned.
45. See Suni, supra note 12, at 504-05 & n.54. On the other hand, many law schools and many professors are showing an increased acceptance of the importance of academic support and in breaking the hierarchical structures that once impeded pedagogical improvement. Anecdotally, many academic support professionals report that doctrinal professors are willing to assist in ASP problem-drafting, co-teaching of classes, and fully integrating the resources of the ASP. The Academic Excellence Program directed by the author has benefited from the full commitment of the faculty and administration of the law school.
46. Id. at 505 n.54. 47. Id. at 505 n.53.
Law School Academic Support academic support, teaching an elective class that incorporates academic support methods, or coordinating materials with doctrinal faculty who approve of academic support.4 8
Nonetheless, the notion of providing contextualized or integrated academic support supplies the notion of "competence." Relatedness is one of the facets of SDT. Part V explains how academic support helps fulfill this as well.
3. Upper-Class Academic Support Methods
Many schools focus their academic support methods on the first year. The justification for this focus likely is that the ASP will help students transition into law school and successfully pass the first year. However, many schools have started to offer academic support in the subsequent years of law school. For instance, schools such as Northeastern University Law School, the University of Connecticut School of Law, and New England Law I Boston offer upper-division courses specifically aimed at students who underperformed in their first year of law school.49 These classes are often directly linked with doctrinal courses, such as Professional Responsibility, Remedies, and Evidence.50 The goals of such a class are to continue to provide support to students throughout law school, thus improving their practice skills, raising their GPAs,51 and increasing the students'
48. See Bloom & Schulze, supra note 43, at 14; Todd, supra note 1, at 200-01.
49. See Academic Success Program, NE. U. SCH. L., http://www. northeastern.edu/law/academics/curriculum/asp/index.html (last visited Oct. 21, 2010); Guide to Student Services, U. CONN. SCH. L., http://www.law.uconn.edul student-handbook/guide-student-services (last visited Oct. 21, 2010); Academic
Excellence, NEW ENG. L. I Bos.,
http://www.nesl.edu/exceptional/academic-excellence.cfm (last visited Oct. 21, 2010).
50. See Melinda Drew, Academic Success Program: Guide to Academic and
Disability Services, NE. UNIV. SCH. L., 4 (2009-2010), http://www.northeastern.
edullaw/pdfs/academics/aspguide.pdf; Course Descriptions, NEW ENG. L. I BOS., http://www.nesl.edu/students/registrarcourses.cfm (last visited Oct. 21, 2010);
Advanced Legal Methods, U. CONN. SCH. L., http://www.law.uconn.edu/
academics/courses/1098-7550-10 (last visited Oct. 21, 2010).
51. At New England Law I Boston, the first year of the "Legal Analysis" course met these goals. Students who chose to enroll in the course outperformed similarly situated students in several ways: in the grades they received in their Evidence course (which all second-year students take
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likelihood of passing the bar exam.5 2A related issue is on the rise. Law school ASPs have started to offer bar preparation courses for seniors. The American Bar Association recently abolished its rule banning such courses from receiving credit,53 and more changes are likely on the way. Thus,
contemporaneously); in overall GPA; and in terms of whether they improved their GPA. See Memorandum from Louis Schulze, Assistant Professor of Law & Dir., Academic Excellence Program, New England Law I Bos., to J. Greenberg, Assoc. Dean, New England Law I Bos. (Jan. 30, 2010) (on file with author) (documenting Legal Analysis course statistics). As a result, the next year the class was offered saw a 60% increase in enrollment of eligible students. Id.
52. One difficult decision arises, however. ASPs often must struggle with the question whether to grade such courses, to provide academic credit for them, or both. See Lustbader, supra note 14, at 841 n.l (describing the various ASPs schools utilize). Many argue that the role of an academic support professional should be to provide supportive assistance to students as they work towards mastery of the law and success in law school-in other words, being in the students' corner. Id. at 841. Providing academic credit and grading these courses, by contrast, posits the academic support professional as less of an advocate and more of a traditional law school professor-objectively and neutrally grading students without regard to any notion of assistive goals. See
id. at 859 (advocating a student-centered pedagogy).
On the other hand, providing credit for the course allows students to receive academic support within their course load rather than on top of it. Some of the most effective academic support is that which provides students with in-depth legal analysis opportunities and extensive feedback. Requiring students to write essays, complete numerous multiple choice questions, or other projects will likely result in half-hearted efforts unless that work leads to credits and grading. The students take the assignments and feedback much more seriously if they will affect their GPAs. Furthermore, graded and for-credit academic support classes also lend implicit gravitas to the ASP. Grading and crediting an ASP class leave students with the impression that the law school values the class and the efforts of the ASP professional. See Todd, supra note 1, at 190 (citing Ruta K. Stropus, Mend It, Bend It, and Extend It: The Fate
of Traditional Law School Methodology in the 21st Century, 27 LOY. U. CHI. L.J. 449, 484-88 (1996)); see also Leah M. Christensen, Enhancing Law School
Success: A Study of Goal Orientations, Academic Achievement and the Declining Self-Efficacy of our Law Students, 33 LAw & PSYCHOL. REV. 57, 81 (2009) ("Minimally, the curve increases competition and devalues learning over performance."); Louis N. Schulze, Jr., Balancing Law Student Privacy Interests
and Progressive Pedagogy: Dispelling the Myth that FERPA Prohibits Cutting-Edge Academic Support Methodologies, 19 WIDENER L.J. 215, 243-45 (2009)
("[G]raded, for-credit, upper-class academic support courses violate [the Family Education Rights Privacy Act] .... ").
53. The American Bar Association, which governs law school accreditation, resolved to delete Interpretation 302-7 of the Standards for Approval of Law
Schools concerning bar examination preparation courses. See SECTION OF LEGAL
2011] Law School Academic Support many law schools are implementing for-credit and graded bar preparation courses for students.54 California Western School of Law (CWSL), for instance, has implemented such a program.55 "CWSL's pre-bar review course introduces students to the bar examination. It continues to refine students' essay and multiple-choice exam-taking skills, as well as introducing students to the performance exam."56
EDUC. & ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR, AM. BAR ASS'N, REPORT TO THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES, at 1, 1 (2008), available at http://www.abanet.org/legaled/ standards/noticeandcomment/%2044118_%201.DOC. That interpretation had provided that: "If a law school grants academic credit for a bar examination preparation course, such credit may not be counted toward the minimum requirements for graduation established in Standard 304. A law school may not require successful completion of a bar examination preparation course as a condition of graduation." Id. at 2. With its deletion, schools are now free to provide credit for such courses and require them for graduation. See Leigh Jones, More Schools Offer Bar Prep Courses, NAT'L L.J. (Sept. 10, 2008), http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202424397151.
54. See E-mail from James A. Janda, Dir., Peer Mentoring & Bar Preparation Programs, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch., to author (Aug. 4, 2009, 12:17 CST) (on file with author) [hereinafter Janda E-mail]; see also Schulze, supra note 52, at 245 ("[M]any schools have created for-credit and/or graded bar courses .. ").
55. California Western Bar Review Program, CAL. W. SCH. L. I SAN DIEGO,
http://www.cwsl.edu/main/default.asp?nav=academic support.asp&body=acade mic_support/BarReviewHomepage.asp (last visited Oct. 21, 2010).
56. Id. Through various ASP contexts, many schools require or strongly recommend ASP courses to students who have struggled academically in law school. This raises the issue of whether requiring struggling students to take an ASP class will lead to stigma, thus leading to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect discussed previously. See supra notes 34-36 and accompanying text.
Although bar preparation courses are unlikely to face this problem because students across the GPA range are likely to enroll in the class, ASP professionals teaching for-credit or graded courses open only to those on academic probation must deal with the "stigma" issue. See Schmidt & lijima,
supra note 33, at 675-76 (suggesting law professors focus on students'
analytical skills to decrease the remedial nature of the program and reduce the associated stigma). If such a course is open only to students in the bottom of the class, simply entering the classroom discloses to all other participants the academic status of every other participant. In other words, everyone in the room knows that everyone else is in the bottom of the class.
As a result, some ASP professionals shy away from required ASP classes or those open only to students on academic probation. Many schools instead focus on private, individual academic counseling for such students, thus ensuring confidentiality and a lack of institutionally created "outing." On the other hand, the classroom environment has distinct advantages which
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4. Post-Law School Academic Support Methods
Most post-law school academic support measures consist of
continued assistance for students as they prepare for the bar
exam. For many schools, this occurs between graduation and a
graduate's first bar exam.
57A growing area of concern, however,
is law schools' efforts to assist graduates who failed the bar
exam.5 8 Many schools attempt to reach out to such graduates,but a desire to not be identified as having failed the bar prevents
many graduates from using these services.
III. WHAT IS "HUMANIZING LEGAL EDUCATION"?
To understand how ASPs benefit law students in ways other
than just academic success, an investigation into these
"alternative justifications" is necessary. Here, the first such
alternative justification-humanizing legal education-will be
discussed.
"Humanizing legal education" refers to a growing
movement within the legal academy to study and improve the
individual academic counseling lacks. For instance, group work is inherently impossible if an ASP avoids classroom work. Second, the classroom environment allows the ASP professional to teach concepts to large numbers of people rather than having to repeat the concept dozens of times in individual academic counseling. Furthermore, in an interactive classroom, students can learn from each others' questions and thoughts; while in individual academic counseling, students learn only from the ASP professional, thus reinforcing the common misperception amongst law students that the professors are the holders of knowledge, while students are not capable of self-directed learning.
See id. at 676 (noting that "a focus on legal doctrine may create dependency
problems" making students feel they need tutoring or should depend on someone to help them learn); Christensen, supra note 52, at 82-83 (encouraging cooperative learning). Like first-year academic support methods, upper-class
academic support requires an examination of these complex issues.
57. See, e.g., Bar Exam Preparation, ST. Louis U. SCH. L., http://law.slu.edu/academics/barexam/index.html (last visited Oct. 21, 2010);
Bar Preparation, U. RICH. SCH. L.,
http://law.richmond.edu/academics/upper-levellbar.html (last visited Oct. 21, 2010) (offering a bar preparation course during the semester as well as weekly bar preparation counseling and tutoring during the bar study period).
58. See Memorandum from William R. Rakes, Chair, Am. Bar. Ass'n Section of Legal Educ. & Admissions to the Bar, to the Deans of ABA-Approved Law Sch. 4 (June 18, 2007), available at http://www.abanet.org/legaled/ standards/Proposed%20Standards%2OCommentary/Prop%20New%2OInt%2030 1-6_Junei92007.pdf.
2011]
Law School Academic Support
negative impact that law school has on many students. A. A Brief History of the Humanizing Movement
The humanizing legal education movement likely had its genesis in 1986 when Andrew Benjamin first documented the role of legal education in psychologically harming its students.59 Legal scholars then began examining not only whether law school tended to cause distress in students, but also the causes of that distress. These efforts included notable articles by Professors Barbara Glesner Fines and Lawrence Krieger.60 Momentum began to build, which culminated in several galvanizing events. First, the AALS created a section called "Balance in Legal Education."61 Second, the section initiated a Listserv designed to expand communication about humaneness between like-minded educators.62 Finally, in 2007, Washburn University School of Law held a symposium focusing on humanizing legal education.63 Instead of a few isolated scholars focusing on this subject, now large groups of legal educators cutting across all genres of the law work together to move toward
59. See Schwartz, Humanizing Legal Education, supra note 37, at 235 (citing G. Andrew H. Benjamin et al., The Role of Legal Education in Producing
Psychological Distress Among Law Students and Lawyers, 1986 AM. B. FOUND.
RES. J. 225). The Benjamin study empirically demonstrated the psychologically harmful effects of law school. The psychopathological symptom responses of students prior to law school were similar to the normal population. During law school and after graduation, however, symptom levels elevated significantly.
60. See B.A. Glesner, Fear and Loathing in the Law Schools, 23 CONN. L. REV. 627, 630 (1991) (noting that the "extreme pressure of legal education interferes with learning, teaches inappropriate interpersonal skills, and encourages counterproductive behaviors and attitudes among students"); Lawrence S. Krieger, Institutional Denial About the Dark Side of Law School,
and Fresh Empirical Guidance for Constructively Breaking the Silence, 52 J.
LEGAL EDUC. 112, 112-13 (2002) (noting faculty denial of law student depression and suggesting "individual and collective faculty approaches" to remedy the situation).
61. Bruce J. Winick, Greetings from the Chair, EQuIPOISE (Ass'n of Am.
Law Sch. Section on Balance in Legal Educ.), Dec. 2009, at 1, available at http://www.aals.org/documents/sections/balance/BalanceInLegalEdDec_09.pdf.
62. Humanizing Ideas, FLA. ST. U., http://humanizingideas.law.fsu.edu/ default.asp (last visited Dec. 13, 2010).
63. See Schwartz, Humanizing Legal Education, supra note 37, at 236.
the goal of providing an environment more conducive to the healthy study of the law.
B. What Is "Humanizing Legal Education"?
Finding a universal definition of what constitutes humanizing legal education has proven elusive. Perhaps the most comprehensive definition of the term, really more of a mission statement, comes from the Web site which serves as the epicenter of the movement. It states that:
Humanizing legal education is an initiative shared by legal educators seeking to maximize the overall health, well being and career satisfaction of law students and lawyers. We find cause for concern in our observations of law students and in the research on, and reports of, problems in the legal profession-including dissatisfaction, depression, excessive work, substance abuse and eroding professionalism. We are interested in the ways legal education is conducted, the impact those choices may have on the attitudes, values, health and well being of law students, and the possible relationship between each of those matters and the problems experienced by our graduates in the profession. Through scholarship, Web-based discussion, empirical research and conferences, we hope to inform the development of innovative teaching methods when appropriate.64
Professor Glesner Fines incorporates three principles into her definition of humanizing legal education: (1) "do no harm";65 (2) "teach students, not ... subjects";66 and (3) "peace and justice."67 The first principle is that law schools should "do no harm": "[L]aw schools need to identify negative stressors in the law school environment, reduce or eliminate those as much as possible, and help the students to manage those that cannot be eliminated."68 Implicit in this principle is the notion that some
64. Humanizing Law School, FLA. ST. U. C. L., http://www.law.fsu.edul
academic-programs/humanizing-lawschool.html (last visited Oct. 21, 2010).
65. Fines, supra note 37, at 313-17. 66. Id. at 318-21.
67. Id. at 322-23.
68. Id. at 313-14.
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Law School Academic Support stressors cannot be eliminated. Thus, one might say that law schools should eliminate stressors that are pedagogically unnecessary while empowering students to cope with the stressors that are necessary for a rigorous education. For instance, exams cause stress, but they certainly cannot be eliminated. Furthermore, frequent formative assessment69 might cause stress, but it is actually a method pedagogically preferable to one exam at the end of a course representing the totality of one's grade. In that instance, frequent formative assessment, while increasing the number of stressors students face, will ultimately reduce the aggregate quantity of stress created by one summative assessment. It also provides a more rigorous education because students are tested more frequently. In this way, humanizing can both prevent psychological harm to students and provide rigorous training.70
Professor Glesner Fines's second principle of humanizing is the notion of teaching students, not subjects.71 Put another way, law schools should move-like most of the rest of the academy-toward a student-centered educational model. Initiatives in this area include training students how to teach themselves,72 teaching students to discern their preferred learning style,73 understanding generational differences in learning,74 and
69. "Formative assessment is the evaluation of student performance during a learning process of prescribed term, while final [or summative] assessment is evaluation at the end of the term." Jay M. Feinman, Law School
Grading, 65 UMKC L. REV. 647, 647 (1997); see also Roy STUCKEY ET AL., BEST PRACTICES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION 255 (2007) (encouraging the use of formative assessments throughout the semester).
70. Another more subtle example of the principle of "do no harm" could include expanding this to "permit no vicarious harm." For instance, Professor Rebecca Flanagan details how law school bullying undermines learning and creates an emotional impediment to successful legal education. See Rebecca Flanagan, Lucifer Goes to Law School: Towards Explaining and Minimizing
Law Student Peer-to-Peer Harassment and Intimidation, 47 WASHBURN L.J.
453, 453-57 (2008) (discussing the impact of student bullying in law schools and explaining faculty or administration-based solutions).
71. Fines, supra note 37, at 318-22.
72. See generally Schwartz, Teaching Law Students, supra note 40 (explaining the process of Self-Regulated Learning).
73. MARTHA M. PETERS & DON C. PETERS, JURIS TYPES: LEARNING LAW
THROUGH SELF-UNDERSTANDING 9-10 (2007).
74. Susan K. McClellan, Externships for Millenial Generation Law
